A Glimpse from the Past

Beside a wide, flowing river, five children played in the dirt and mud. Their laughter rang out, pure and unrestrained, as they splashed in the water and shaped muddy figures. Their clothes were tattered, their faces streaked with grime, but none of it mattered. The joy of the moment was all-consuming.

Ithri woke up in the middle of it.

He was there, on his knees in the mud with the other children, the dirt covering his hands. The realization struck him with an odd clarity this was a dream. Yet, it felt startlingly real.

'I've never experienced a lucid dream like this it's so vivid' he thought, marveling at the sensations around him.

He looked down at his hands, noticing how small they were. 'Why do I look like a child?' he wondered, confusion briefly.

Then it hit him. This wasn't any dream, it was a memory. He recognized the river and the layout of the village in the distance, plus the familiar faces of the children around him. This was a random village on the Wada continent, where he had lived for the first seven years of his life.

'Of all places. Why here?' he found himself thinking.

Ithri stood to his feet, searching out this four-star shape Zahin mentioned. The only feeling of familiarity didn't sit well in him as he strode to the riverbank. Kneeling, he dipped his hands into the cool water, scrubbing away the mud. The river's flow was calm, but its reflection felt distorted as if the dream itself was beginning to ripple.

" Why are you washing your hands already ? " a voice asked behind him in a normal tone, speaking the native language of Ithri.

He turned to see a young girl standing a few steps away. She was about his age, with dark hair tied back in a loose braid and a smudge of mud on her cheek. Her hands were still coated in dirt, and she regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

It was the daughter of one of the villagers. Her face was familiar, but could not recall her name.

Ithri ignored her and scanned the surrounding area, his eyes scouring the landscape for the four-star shape. His gaze moved over rive, mud, and distant huts, but there was no sign of the symbol anywhere.

Ithri mused to himself, 'This is going to be a hard job.

The girl frowned at his silence, clearly irritated. With a quick shove, she pushed him into the shallow water. "Don't ignore me, Yufa!" she snapped her hands on her hips, her muddy face scrunched in defiance.

Ithri sat in the water, startled but curiously calm. 'I wasn't angry at her, yet that name … Yufa. It's been almost fifteen years since anybody called me that.'

The name stirred something deep inside him, pulling at threads of his past he had buried long ago. He looked at the girl again, her expression softening as if she regretted her outburst. She was so young, so full of life so unaware of what was coming.

'Today is the day,' he realized with a sinking heart. Today, when the slaughter happened.

His eyes had fallen upon the girl, the poor child who would soon become the victim of this nightmare. 'This girl,' he thought grimly, 'this innocent child… enslaved, her life torn apart.'

The weight of the memory leaned upon him like some storm cloud, and for an instant, the dream faltered, the world around him flickering at the edges.

Ithri wrestled silently with just one problem he had tried to solve time and time again, then failed. The weight of his emotions pressed down on a storm he could not weather. He felt an overwhelming pang of empathy for himself, for the child he was, for the hurt.

Tears welled up in his eyes as realization dawned. This was a dream, it was just a dream. But the feelings felt real, raw, and unrelenting it was. In the dream, nobody was accountable for crying. So he cried.

He cried over the innocence stolen that day, the life not lived as he would have desired to, the helpless feeling still carried well in his person up to this very day.

The girl watched him, her defiance melting into confusion and concern. She hesitated before taking a step closer. Her voice wavered as she said, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry."

Her apology was unexpected, and it broke something within him. Through his tears, he managed a weak smile, though it didn't reach his eyes.

' Wow!! The dream makes me weirdly emotional.'Ithri considers.

He stood, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He raised his hand, holding it between the sun and the high ridge of the mountain, just as the villagers had taught him to measure time. The distance between his fingers and the horizon was how they marked the hours of sunlight left in a day.

'What I remember,' he thought grimly, 'the soldiers arrived when the sun was about four fingers high. Now I can add one finger from my other hand for about fifteen minutes. I have fifteen minutes.'

The realization sent a jolt through him. His heart racing, he looked around at the peaceful village, the children playing, the sound of the river mingling with distant chatter.

'I can't change the real world,' he reminded himself, 'but even in the dream, it can help me.'

His mind raced with possibilities. He could warn them, hide the girl, do something. Of course, nothing would change in the past, but in this way maybe he could get a little consolation, the feeling that after all, something was done from his side, at least.

But a fire inside him burned brighter, igniting a defiant thought.

'Fight.'

'I'll try to do something, and if I die, I can take the loss. I'll wake up in the real world and wait for another try.'

'Yeah, maybe it's harmful but like a cigarette, it's harmful yet worth it.'

'I just hope he finishes inscribing the symbol before they kill me. I gated to lose '

'I must make them all suffer, even more so their leader.'

'I still remember him smiling.'

'I want to remember him begging for mercy.'